Just in case you did not see this in the PMC News widget.
I received this email yesterday after having spent over two hours dealing with the described issues on Tuesday morning (and ripping and replacing software that, apparently, did not need to be replaced).
We are aware of the recent connectivity issues with SEP SBE. We are investigating and have determined that this is an issue with communications to our server caused by a recent Microsoft Update (KB3076895), however the Microsoft patch is a critical security update and is not recommended to be removed. The Endpoint Protection agent is functioning normally and systems are still protected.
Symptoms related to this issue:
System Tray icon shows it’s in an unknown state
Policies are not being updated
Client GUI may not open
The Portal is not being updated with the status of the clientWe will be providing more information as it becomes available.
Sincerely,
The Symantec Customer Communications Team